Low vaccination rates in wealthiest parts of Sydney

It's not often you'll see similar statistics for prestigious Sydney areas like Mosman and remote and indigenous communities - but that's the startling reality of the latest figures released on the current rate of immunisation of children in Australia.

The National Health Performance Authority report shows that almost 80,000 Australian children are not immunised against deadly diseases, with 32 local communities at risk of outbreak. Rates of 85% or below are considered risky for the local community, with coastal areas of the Richmond Valley, including Byron Bay and Lennox Heads, all falling in the 'at risk' category. But surprisingly, so is the inner-city of Sydney - an area stretching from Darling Harbour to St Peters and Rosebery - the south coast, the Blue Mountains and Kempsey-Nambucca.

So why are some of the most well-educated and high-income areas of Sydney recording a similar level of immunisation as communities that are significantly disadvantaged?

Dr Jeremy McAnulty is the director of Health Protection with NSW Health, and he joined Adam Spencer this morning to discuss the latest figures.

"We are always concerned (when we see figures like this) as immunisation is such a wonderful technology that prevents such horrible disease, the higher we can get the rates the better."

However, Dr McAnulty says there are some explanations behind the current figures.

"Parents are busy and do not always see the diseases that failure to vaccinate cause, so it's not necessarily the top thing on their priority list to get their child vaccinated on time, or they just forget."

"In some of the more affluent areas we think that there is maybe less incentive to report the vaccination status as well. So what happens is that a doctor has to report the vaccination status of the child to the Australian Immunisation Registry. If that doesn't happen, or doesn't happen on time for whatever reason, then the child doesn't get reported as vaccinated or fully vaccinated."

There has also been some debate amongst certain areas of the community about the safety and necessity of immunisations of children, something which Dr McAnulty acknowledged but rejected as a major contributor to the current statistics.

"One of the problems has been that when you google on the internet information about immunisation often you do get onto anti-vaccination websites. So we are trying to counter that with a new immunisation campaign to try and get the best information out to parents."

"But we currently believe that there's not a huge anti-vaccination feeling out there. We know that most parents are very sensible, and they know the science behind vaccination is very credible."

Not everyone agrees though.

Christopher from Mosman, a father of three year old and three week old daughters, called in to explain to Adam why he and his wife decided against immunising their children.

"We live in a clean country with good doctors, and we thought the risks of immunising were higher than not immunising."

When asked exactly what risks he thought there were in immunising his daughters, he listed a number of concerns including links between autism and vaccinations.

"I've met two people that say that's the cause of their sons' autism," Chris said.

However, Chris admitted he wasn't aware that the claim of a link between autism and immunisation has now been completely discredited, and the original report that linked the two has since been retracted.

Instead, Chris and many others believe that a healthy diet, vitamins and natural remedies will protect their children from disease.

It's an argument the health authorities are currently trying to correct, through public campaigns and government websites.

"We've got overwhelming science about how diseases are spread - they are spread by a particular virus or bacteria," Dr McAnulty told Adam, "and so no matter how strong and healthy you are, unless you are immune (to that particular disease) you are not going to stop getting measles, or whooping cough."